Blindsighted
by Orange Sodie
Summary: It seems as though paranoia was born the moment he met her. [FAR]


Title: Blindsighted  
Author: Carolina  
Rating: I'm a foul mouth, but nothing serious.  
Spoilers: None  
Author's notes: I never read your author's notes, so I'm going to assume you won't read mine. I'm not wearing any underwear. Also, thanks to Mariel for whipping me as I wrote this. The welts hurt, but they get the words out. Nothing like a little tough love to get the creative juices running. Enjoy.

Blindsighted  
by Carolina

His eyes scan her closely as she crosses the room, and it quickly dawns on him that she's looking particularly fuckable this morning.

Not that there's ever been a time when she hasn't looked fuckable. To him. She's fuckable every morning, every afternoon, and he's not entirely sure, but he gets the feeling she looks most fuckable at night. He doesn't care if she's knee-deep in evidence or knee-deep in crap. He wouldn't care if she ever heard it and found it offensive. Hell, he doesn't care that fuckable isn't even a real word. Whenever he sees her, it's the first one that comes to mind. That's what she does these days, invents adjectives with her unintentional seduction, makes him wish he was more eloquent, educated. Maybe if he was he wouldn't have to watch her from afar, create pathetic little fantasies where she likes him, likes all of him, even his limited vernacular.

Yes, she's fuckable every second of the day, but there's something different about her this morning, something he hasn't quite been able to pin-point. Whatever it is, it has her circling the lab, ignoring her case and casually prying into other people's work, maybe as a way to distract herself. It's certainly out of character and it makes him wonder, and it's partly the reason why he's been throwing discreet glances in that direction for nearly ten minutes now as he pretends to pay attention to the details of his latest case. So far he hasn't been able to come up with an explanation for her behavior. It's possible that she doesn't want to focus on her own case because she's scared about the possibility of never being able to solve it but he discards the theory pretty much immediately, because for as long as he's known her she's never backed down from a challenge.

It's something he likes that they have in common.

When she reaches her third destination she stops. He looks away, listens to the morose details of the case, pretends he's reading the file but his eyes involuntarily find her again. She shares a few words with one of the DNA analysts and they laugh, and he finds himself smiling at a joke he's too far away to hear. The twinkle that appears in her eyes alone tells him whatever it is they're talking about would make him laugh, too.

He likes that they have the same sense of humor.

"Hey, Flack, you coming or what?" Danny barks from the door, and it makes him realize, for the first time since he arrived, that he's not here to stargaze but to do actual work.

Right. Work. Some asshole decided it would be a great idea to dump a body in the East River and they should probably go check that out. A fucking floater. That is not what he needs today. What he needs is to go home and turn the lights off, unplug his phone and sleep for the rest of the week. It's cold out there, raining, and crowded and loud and just thinking about work makes his head pound. In the meantime, the asshole is probably sitting comfortably at home, napping and enjoying his asshole existence while he has to go down to the river and fish a human turd out of the water.

Life really isn't fair.

In the time it takes him to turn to Danny and tell him he's coming whenever he damn feels like it and look back, she disappears. He tries to be as subtle as he can, which isn't very subtle at all, as he looks for her around the lab but it's futile; she's gone.

So he follows Danny out of the lab and as they drive to Brooklyn his mind wanders in circles around the lameness of his life but doesn't get anywhere near the vicinity of the case. Danny rambles on and on about evidence and warrants and how he wishes they worked somewhere warmer and safer, and all Flack can do to keep his feet slightly grounded on the conversation is to inject a, "yeah," or an, "I know," into it whenever he deems it necessary.

The rest of him wonders how long before someone notices half the time he's at the lab he doesn't really need to be there, that when he does need to be there he isn't really all that there as soon as she enters the scene. It's pathetic and inexplicable, because maybe if he loved her, if he was in love with her, he'd have a very reasonable explanation for this little whatever. But it's not love – how could he love her when he barely interacts with her and when he does it's work related? What it is is some strange fascination, a compulsion, hell, maybe even an obsession with her, with wanting to see her and hear her and know she's alive. It's a need and it's fierce and it's pathetic, because she's not the most beautiful woman in the world and yet he can't seem to take his eyes off her when she's around. And when she's not around he sees her in his mind and he can't keep his eyes off her there either. He wonders sometimes if his curiosity is scientific, because sometimes he finds himself wishing he could pick her up and put her under a microscope, figure out what it is about her that makes him like this, so fucking crazy.

"...she told Aiden it was all a misunderstanding, but if you could see her face, Flack..."

Danny continues and suddenly Flack's two feet hit the ground with a boom so loud he's sure all of New York could hear it.

Pathetic that the mere mention of her name does that now, that it used to be the sight of her and now it's broadened to include everything that has to do with her. He tries too hard not to appear too interested in the conversation now that they're talking about her, because even though Danny is a guy and guys aren't particularly attentive to these things, Danny is still a CSI and Flack has learned, the hard way, that CSIs take notice of everything. So he feigns indifference, but it reeks of a cheap act and suddenly he has to change the topic, because he's pretty sure his body language is betraying him and he's also sure Danny is five seconds away from figuring it all out. It seems as though paranoia was born the moment he met her.

He shifts in his seat and taps the steering wheel a couple of times, and he tries to be as curious as he can when he asks, "What makes a body float to the surface like that?"

There, that'll get Danny going for a while, or at least until they arrive at the scene. It's all the time he thinks he needs to attempt to extricate her out of his head. He knows it's almost impossible – God knows he's tried before – but he pretends he can, pretends she doesn't exist in his memory even though by now she's found a permanent home there. But he evicts her for just a minute, which is long enough to listen to Danny talk bullshit about bacteria and air bubbles and buoyancy, and it works, because by the time the biology lesson reaches its conclusion, they find themselves on the banks of the East River.

He spends the rest of the day trying not to gag at the sight or the memory of the body they fish out of the disgusting waters, interviewing the only witness they have, trying to figure out how and why this guy ended up at the bottom of the river to begin with. He finds the questions are a good distraction. That's what his life has come to recently, the two constants that seem to circumvent each other incessantly. She distracts him from work and work distracts him from her. It's weird, and he's not exactly sure how it works, but he supposes it's better than having no distractions at all, and as far as distractions go she's a good one, so he doesn't complain.

The body is eventually baptized John Doe and he thinks they should keep the file at the bottom of the pile, because the odds of being able to identify the body, or find someone who cares, are slim to none. But he follows Danny all over Brooklyn anyway, checks the missing persons registry, tries not to picture the body, tries not to give himself away, tries not to obsess over the joke he never heard that morning but still considered funny. There's a lot of pretending involved in his daily routine, and he knows one of these days he's going to explode and his little secret, whatever it is, will be divulged. Either that or someone will notice him looking at her in that fucking moronic way he's sure he does and will figure out what's going on through his head. He's almost completely okay with that. Maybe if someone explains it to him he'll be able to understand.

By the time Danny decides to call it quits it's late, too late, and he should probably go home and squeeze in a couple of hours of sleep before his next shift, but he finds himself driving towards the lab instead. One of the suspects in Mac's case has some suspicious priors and he needs to let him know that. His mind reminds him they have computers at the lab and Mac probably already knows this but he doesn't listen. Deep down he knows that's not the reason why he's driving there.

He's surprised to see she hasn't gone home yet when he spots her in the break room. She's holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of the New York Times in the other, and looking so fucking sexy he should probably stay as far away as possible or else. But he goes inside anyway because he's so foolish he thinks he can control himself around her when he knows he can't.

But he likes to pretend that he does.

She looks up when the door opens, is met by the same seemingly indifferent eyes, and her attention returns to her newspaper nonchalantly. "What are you doing here?"

Flack shrugs his shoulders and is surprised to realize he's not nervous or even hesitant. Nervous and hesitant would certainly be around if this was happening in his head. They're not around now and he wonders if that's a bad thing. Nervous and hesitant keep him from doing stupid things.

"Overtime," he replies with just a hint of humor.

She doesn't look at him, doesn't even move as she says, "I pay for that overtime with my taxes."

"I pay for yours with mine," he zaps back.

Aiden looks at him for a brief moment, probably less than a second but long enough to use it as a way to let him know that yeah, point taken. She then turns her back to him and rests her elbows on the counter, and the article she's reading must be fascinating, because she doesn't seem concerned or even aware about the fact that she's pretty much graced him with a nice view of the curves of her behind. He stares, of course, because he's a guy - biology says so – and well, that means he kinda _has_ to. But by doing so he realizes he's no better than those bums at construction sites who shout obscenities at anything with a vagina that walks by. So he focuses on the back of her head instead, because he's spent enough time on the streets to know he really doesn't wanna be the construction guy. He wants to be the cop.

So the cop waits.

But moments flow by and nothing seems to happen. He shifts in his feet and makes a subtle grunting sound, but it only causes her to take a sip of her coffee. He smiles cynically and shakes his head.

She's ignoring him.

He can't tell whether it's unintentional or on purpose, but it frustrates him nonetheless. He doesn't know what it is, but every time he manages to infiltrate into her personal space, past cases and dead bodies and murderers, he finds himself trying to catch her attention like a fucking three year old. Pathetic, but he can't help it. He wants her to look at him, really look at him and really pay attention to him when he talks about things that have nothing to do with work. He wants her to know he doesn't have a PhD in biology or chemistry, but he can carry on an intelligent conversation if that's what she wants. He wants her to know he can be funny, too.

Mostly he wants to switch places with her so she knows what it's like to exhaust herself mentally while trying to figure out what it is she's doing to him. He wants her to spend the few minutes before she falls asleep wondering what it would be like to kiss him, have him inside of her, to hear him scream out her name. He wants to put her in his shoes, partly because he wants her to suffer like he does, partly because she's smarter than him and he knows she'd be able to figure this whole thing out.

But it's nearly impossible, because the more he tries to catch her attention the more she ignores him. She's cruel and he's almost always willing to play submissive. And he knows it's fucking sick, this game they play, but he can't help thinking they make a great pair, the sadist and the masochist.

"What are you looking at?" she suddenly asks and Flack frowns, trying to figure out what color the eyes on the back of her head are because how the hell does she know he's been staring?

Suddenly her eyes look up and he realizes she can see his reflection off the glass wall in front of her, and this whole time she's been spying on him spying on her. Right. Who was the architectural genius who came up with the fucking stupid idea to build this whole place out of glass?

Surprisingly, though, it doesn't bother him that she seems to have caught him red handed. In a way, it's kind of exciting. It also lets him know that she's one step ahead of him, has probably been one step ahead of him since this whole thing started. And the fact that she's known all along, or at least the idea of it, doesn't bother him as much as it should.

"Nothing," he replies and shrugs his shoulders, tries to appear nonchalant, which at this point is just a waste of time.

Alarm bells appear to go off inside her head, because she turns around and gives him a look, a weird hybrid between curiosity and annoyance. Had this scene happened in his head, as they all do, cowardice would've made him bail long ago. But now that he's in front of her he finds his balls are definitely bigger than he originally thought they were, because her stern look doesn't bother him one bit, doesn't make him want to back down. Instead, they make him want to play her heartless game and he retaliates with indifference, because he knows that pisses her off and for some reason he can't understand, he wants to piss her off.

It should also be weird that neither of them is saying anything. And it should be awkward, the intense way in which she looks at him all the way from across the room as he doubles the intensity, if only to let her know he's not playing submissive this time. But it's not awkward. It's a lot of things combined but it's not awkward. For a second he feels he's close to figuring out the origins of this fascination. He knows now she has the answer with her and won't share it with him. But then she breaks the moment when her eyes look away.

Flack instantly misses the connection and suddenly makes it his goal to get it back. A couple of seconds later she looks at him again, only this time wearily when his feet begin to move. He knows she's about to ask him what the hell has gotten into him - she's got that annoyed look on her face - but that is precisely the one question he's looking to answer and in lieu of making a mute moron out of himself, he creates a jail of arms around her and forces her to take half a step back. A frown quickly joins the emotional mosaic on her face, but he purposely ignores it as his body pins her against the counter. His nose on her cheek tilts her head up and his lips begin a search for her own.

Her body tenses up immediately and her first instinct seems to make her want to take off. But he's got one hand resting on the counter on either side of her and there's nowhere for her to go now. It never crosses his mind that this is the clear definition of 'physical assault', that he could spend a couple of nights in jail if she so wanted, that he could even lose his badge. The last thing on his mind is the consequences of this spontaneous moment as he licks her lower lip in an attempt to intensify the situation nearly fruitlessly. She's still trying to wiggle out of his grasp, but it seems to Flack that she isn't trying very hard, because he knows she could beat the living fuck out of him if she so wanted and yet she's not doing it. It's all the encouragement he needs to take things a bit further, to find a little bit of flesh under her blouse with his fingers and draw misshapen circles there, to place his other hand on the back of her head to get her to stop moving. It also seems weird to him that she gets tired of fighting very quickly but hell, he's not about to complain about that.

He finds her lips are adamant and yet somehow willing. The realization of what he's doing knocks the wind out of him and suddenly he's finding it very hard to breathe as he tastes hot coffee in her mouth, but what good is breathing if he won't be able to taste her, anyway? She seems to be having a hard time breathing herself, and proof of what a masochist he is surfaces quickly, because just as she begins to give, just as she stops struggling and her hands move up to frame his face, he stops.

When he takes two steps back her eyes are still closed, lipstick comically smeared around her mouth. And when she opens her eyes he's met with a look of pure shock. He doesn't know whether he should be proud of that or not, because he's never been able to upstage a CSI in his life, but a small part of him seems to have started the celebrations regardless.

"Flack"

"Aiden," he interrupts her, partly because he can't answer the question he knows she's about to ask him, and partly because he doesn't want her to ruin this moment with words or movements or even her breathing, and her name is the closest thing to, "shut up," he can come up with at the moment.

She stares at him inquisitively for just a second, and it's reminiscent to the way she was looking at him before, only there's something new now. It continues until she looks around the room and realizes what just happened. Only then does her entire demeanor change, and he sees the anger that flashes through her eyes fleetingly, the confusion. It's dangerous. Aiden doesn't like to be confused. Aiden doesn't like to be taken by surprise and he's broken that rule. Next time their eyes meet she looks as though she's trying to decide which one of his limbs to break first, and Flack doesn't have a PhD in chemistry or biology, but he knows that's not a good thing.

He gives her a look he hopes she recognizes as an apology, half assed as it is, turns around and leaves the room.

He can feel her eyes on him as he exits the lab, because some idiot decided it would be a great idea to build this whole place out of glass, but he ignores her gaze as he walks out. And when he's about to disappear out of her field of vision he allows himself one last look. Her arms are crossed in front of her and her mood seems to have settled into indignant anger mode, because her lips are pursed and her eyes are fiery but there's still a hint of curiosity there. He doesn't know why it brings him satisfaction, but he hopes his shoes aren't an uncomfortable fit on her.

"What are you doing here? I thought you went home," Danny asks as he makes his way inside the lab, carrying a stack of files and looking tired and uninterested.

Flack shrugs his shoulders and replies only because it's the polite thing to do. "Had to take care of some business."

He ignores Danny's confusion, and as he walks into the cold night he bites on his lower lip instinctively, tasting cheap coffee there. He still can't believe he did what he actually did, but a part of him can't help but feel an immense gratification, because although he wasn't able to quench the questions in his mind, at least he can sleep well tonight with the knowledge that this whole time she'd been doing a great deal of pretending, too.


End file.
